Our list of 18 excellent iOS apps for English teaching and learning has been updated with 'The Dead' - including a full audio version by Barry McGovern.

Wes Anderson's film The Grand Budapest Hotel is great fun. It (its milieu at least) was inspired by the work of the Austrian writer Stefan Zweig. A fine novel on Zweig's end in Brazil is published by the excellent Pushkin Press: The Last Days by Laurent Seksik.

And while we're on Pushkin Press - Maxim Leo'sRed Love is a fascinating read about the GDR (read it in conjunction with Anna Funder's superb Stasiland).

Willy Vlautin is a terrific writer. His new novel The Free has just been published.

House of Cards (starring Kevin Spacey) and its relationship to Shakespeare's dramas.